Chelsea Bridge Wharf Residents’ Association refuses to deal with complaint about electoral manipulation – Leaseholders still not able to see contract with Urang

It seems quite clear that Larisa Villar Hauser, Louis Kendall and the other unelected directors of the CBW RTM company do not intend to change anything with regard to the highly manipulated elections of the past.

I pointed out to them them two months ago, that these manipulations (listed below) must be addressed in order to have any semblance of fair elections. They ignored that, so a month later I made an official complaint which was ignored. The response received today, (2 months later) is simply these 1.5 lines:

””Regarding your complaint, we have nothing to respond. You will receive details of the election, which will be run by Urang, in due course”.” (CBWRA / CBW RTM company response to my complaint, received 26.3.25)

This is the level of entitlement and arrogance of these people who claim to represent leaseholders but have never been elected fairly as Chairs and not elected at all as directors. 91% of leaseholders did not or could not vote in the last election for Chair of CBWRA. They do not even follow their own complaints procedure.  Of course it would be very difficult for them to respond to my complaints about the electoral manipulation because it is all well documented and they have no way to defend the way elections have been run.

It seems reasonable to assume, then, that this disgraceful attitude will continue after Right to Manage and will be reflected in how the elections for directors will be run —unaccountable, unrepresentative, imagining themselves above the rules, able to simply ignore complaints even when they are about the most serious matters.

Leaseholders are still not able to see the contract with the new managing agent Urang, and no explanation has been given for this. What exactly have the unelected Chelsea Bridge Wharf RTM directors committed us to? What fees will be paid to Urang? What is the duration of the contract? What is the notice period for ending the contract? It is crazy in my view that this information is secret and that we don’t even know who signed the contract on behalf of Chelsea Bridge Wharf.

These are the various ways in which elections have been manipulated in the past and discussion shut down. Will we be seeing these games again, but in the context of elections for directors of the Right to Manage company?

i) Manifestos should be circulated well ahead of voting, as is the case in any normal election in any context (not the day before voting opens). This is clearly an attempt to prevent meaningful discussion or campaigning by candidates.

ii) Residents should be able to meet candidates together and ask them questions in a normal fashion, well ahead of the election—not halfway through it when many people have already voted. At the last election meeting, your bizarre suggestion was that the candidates should be in separate rooms, and the CBWRA secretary actually said at that meeting, “Why do we need a debate?”. i.e. you are scared of a genuine debate and given your track record this is not surprising.

iii) No candidates should be banned from the CBW app. You have closed my account because I exposed your former claim that RTM was not possible as being complete nonsense. You have never apologized for misinforming residents about RTM. wasting huge sums on supposed alternatives to RTM or for closing my CBW app account on false pretences.

iv) People with a proven record of trying to prevent fair elections (by libelling candidates, allegedly physically intimidating them, or engaging in alleged assaults on other residents, or who have a documented history of online bullying) should not be anywhere near the electoral process. Yet you have actually put such a person in charge of the Chair elections in previous years and no doubt intend to do so again in 2025. One can only assume that you approve of this person’s methods and after all it is very unlikely you would have been elected without them.

v) If voting is limited to CBWRA members then this should be widely publicised NOW so that those who want to be able to vote can take out or renew membership. This change was brought in without notice a few weeks ahead of the last election with the clear intention of excluding as many voters as possible, As a result 91% of leaseholders did not vote in the 2024 chair election. 

vi) Joint candidates for Chair should not be allowed. This was a violation of the constitution, which amounts to electoral manipulation. Once elected, you changed the constitution to allow joint candidates, but this is still wrong in principle and is not found in any other Chair elections.

vii) Garton-Jones should be clearly instructed not to interfere in the CBWRA elections, as the have one on previous occasions, with the clear complicity of the current chairs. 

viii) Can you explain what the relationship between the CBWRA and the RTM company will be if RTM is achieved? It seems apparent that the CBWRA would have very little meaningful role or power in that event, which I imagine is why you are standing down as Chairs, but apparently have no intention of doing so as Directors of the RTM company.

ix) Election for the Directors of the  RTM company are of much greater significance than those for Chair of CBWRA but you have arbitrarily decided that there will not be any such elections and you will continue to appoint directors on a crony basis, 

x) You have once again added several months to your term as Chairs, in violation of the constitution 

Unless the above are addressed then the  elections will once again be meaningless and whoever wins will have no legitimacy or respect in the eyes of residents and cannot possibly claim to represent their interests.

This will be particularly disturbing in the context of Right to Manage,  since the directors of the CBW RTM company will have almost complete control over a £6m service charge budget and will be unaccountable to leaseholders, regardless of their performance or behaviour.